Wednesday Magic District: Aliens and radio
Today’s (late) Magic District touches on one local show — the Big Broadcast of October 30, 1938, taking place this weekend — and on audio fiction in general. It’s a little scattered, but mostly it’s about how fiction in a radio or podcast format or even just reading a piece aloud makes different demands on the audience and author alike.
I wonder: are there any stories that are solely meant to be read aloud? Not oral histories as such, but stories that don’t function nearly so well in written format. Hm.
Wednesday Magic District: Down from Monadnock
Today’s Magic District post is pretty much one big extended metaphor, probably the result of one part of my brain seizing onto an idea while the rest of it works out the last couple of chapters before I hand the MS over to BRAWL on Sunday. Here I am trying to get the big climactic scene fixed, and one part of my brain refuses to think about anything but mountains. Go figure.
This is belated, but the reading in Williamstown with Elizabeth Bear was fantastic! Thank you to all who came — I’m so glad I got the chance to see you. And thanks to Inkberry and the Williams English Department as well, for sponsoring the event in the first place!
More news tomorrow. Right now, chapter nineteen is giving me a funny look, and I must do something about that.
Wednesday Magic District: Dreams
Today’s Magic District explores the well of my subconscious mind. It’s not a pretty place. It also doesn’t make much sense. Don’t ask about the severed heads; I still don’t know what’s up with that.
Also — and on a completely different and much less creepy note — just a reminder that tomorrow night I’ll be in Williamstown, reading with Elizabeth Bear at 7:00. Come join us!
Dross
I’ve finished a new draft of the third Evie novel, and it’s starting to feel like a book now. Well, at least the story’s now hanging together, which it certainly wasn’t last draft. Now I just have to spackle it together before handing it to the writers’ group so that they can tell me what sucks about it.
But here’s the thing: I kept a scrap file while I was working on this draft, since a lot of my revisions consisted of cutting and pasting and shifting around whole sections. (Turns out when you move Chapter 14 to Chapter 3, then it wonks up everything else. Who knew?) The novel, as it currently stands, is a little over 100,000 words.
The scrap file? 40,000 words.
I’m starting to think maybe this is not the most efficient method.
News: Off to the Berkshires
Your promised news: nothing to do with new fiction, sadly (bangs head against manuscript), but something a little more entertaining. On Thursday, October 15, I’ll be heading back to my alma mater Williams College (nestled in the scenic Berkshires, right next to Colonial Pizza*) for an evening talk with Elizabeth Bear. Sponsored by Inkberry and the Williams English Department, the event starts at 7:00 and, as far as I’m concerned, goes till people are tired of listening to us.
The official description’s below. If you’re in the area, come and see us!
An Evening With Elizabeth Bear & Margaret Ronald
Enjoy an evening of speculative fiction with award-winning author Elizabeth Bear and up-and-coming author Margaret Ronald ’97 . Bear is author of the Shakespearean fantasy novels of the Promethean Age series (most recently Hell and Earth) and of two trilogies of Norse fantasy, as well as two trilogies of science fiction. Ronald is author of the critically-acclaimed Spiral Hunt and its forthcoming two sequels. After each writer reads from her published work, both writers will take questions about their work, speculative fiction, the literary life, how they got into “the business,” etc. Book-signing to follow. Presented by the English Department and Inkberry.
* Actually, is Colonial Pizza still there? I mostly remember it from the WCFM carts; I think I ate there maybe once in four years. And just asking that question makes me feel old and cranky . . . I gotta get a lawn so I can tell kids to get off it.
Margaret Ronald 